Text messages
Below is a hypothetical text message conversation between Ishmael and Nurse Esther that the two might have had the night before he left the UNICEF camp to eventually wind up in the US. Contained within the cutesy back-and-forth is Ishmael’s realization that he can indeed learn to love again. He believed that his heart would always be cold, that he could never live with himself and the things he was forced to do. Esther believed that Ishmael was still a human beneath his hardened exterior, and by showing genuine human kindness and by slowly allowing Ishmael to talk about his trauma, Esther showed Ishmael that he could become whole again.